


Connecting Thread

by Statementends (Blueberryshortcake)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Soul Bond, Spoilers for MAG 145, Web plots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 12:29:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19869682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blueberryshortcake/pseuds/Statementends
Summary: Jon uses the ritual Gertrude and Agnes were bound with.





	Connecting Thread

This is want they want of course. One more step on a path he didn’t know the end to, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because as things were now there was a dark certainty that he would never see Martin Blackwood again.

Certainty he had abundance of. 

Finding the ritual took no time at all. He just closed his eyes and the Archives opened to him. Gertrude had filed them away in a corner somewhere in the 1950s. Filing doesn’t matter when you can know the exact location of everything. 

It was funny. He pushed the desks out of the way so there was a big empty space. He had almost expected for someone to walk in. To stop him.

But Melanie was gone to therapy with Georgie escorting her. 

And Daisy and Basira had stepped out for a private moment. 

Hellen was with …. with Manuella.

No one was here. Just the researchers upstairs. They didn’t dare come down into the Archives. They never had. 

He brushed the chalk off his hands and stood. He needed something of Martin’s. Hair or an object. 

He went into the little room that Martin had lived in for so many months… it felt like so long ago. Jane Prentiss. 

The tape of poetry had his voice. Jon stood stalk still, listening to it. 

His voice. 

Jon closed his eyes. He knew what Martin was thinking about then. Loneliness. Jon. Wondering if Jon would understand if he ever heard his poem. 

Jon smiled sadly. He did he understood it perfectly. But not the way Martin wanted perhaps. 

It had been… it hadn’t been that long since he had heard Martin. But the fog that was seeping into the Institute made everything and everyone so far away. 

He didn’t even register he had listened to the tape without a tape player. He just took the cassette to his carefully constructed circle. 

He wished he felt foolish about it. That a ritual like this would work. Would do anything. He didn’t feel foolish though. Just… desperate and… resigned. 

Because this is what they wanted. 

He absentmindedly took out the lighter he always kept in his pocket, seeing it for the first time. The web design gleamed under the fluorescent light. 

“Anything to add?” He asked. 

There wasn’t.

He flicked the lighter. Web he had never noticed before burst into flame around him. There was so much of it. He stood in awe and wondered if he had just set himself and the archives alight, ending everything in such a mild gesture. 

All the strings were gone now, save for one. He shivered. The strand ran right into his heart. Then the cold. Like being plunged into an icy sea. Is this how he feels all the time now? 

He wondered if Gertrude could see her string to Agnes. He didn’t think she could. He followed it upstairs to Elias’ old office. 

He didn’t knock. 

Martin was clinging to his desk, eyes wide open, shaking. 

“Jon.” He noticed him at once. All his focus was on him. “Jon. What did you do?” 

Jon slid his hand over the thread. Martin started, looked down. 

“Jon!” 

He should apologize probably. Or say something about it. Say why he did it. Make an excuse. It was the spiders fault. It was the web. 

“Whatever happens,” He finally said. “We’re together. I just. I want us to be together.” 

Martin was angry. Of course he was angry.

“Don’t you get it!? I’m trying to protect you! Damn it Jon. There’s more happening than even you know. Why can’t you just let me--”

Jon stepped forward slowly. His insides, his soul, his heart, they all felt so cold and far away. Martin had been living like this for so long. It was agony. 

He put his hand over Martin’s. It almost burned it felt so warm to do that, even though he knew Martin was freezing too. 

“Jon?” Martin’s voice softened. He looked so tired and hurt and maybe just as resigned as Martin. 

Jon wondered why the web wanted them like this. Tangled in one another. Or maybe Jon had made it up. Maybe it was just him that wanted it like this. 

Jon forced a smile. 

“I’m sorry. I’ve made a mess of things… but I… just … I can’t be the one that loses you either. So … maybe we’re both idiots.”

And Martin knew what Jon meant. Knew what Jon felt. Martin knew in a flash of borrowed inspiration. 

He flinched, but didn’t move his hand because everything was starting to thaw and it hurt so much. God it hurt so much. 

Jon wrapped his arms around him, trying to help him through the pain he knew was there, the pain he could feel. 

He knew about the Extinction. And Martin’s desire to see Jon safe. And his lack of care towards what will happen to himself in the aftermath. And his fear that Jon knows now, even with his arms around him. 

“You won’t be alone again,” Jon said. He didn’t add you can’t. It sounded creepy, and… that hadn’t been what he was trying to do. 

But Martin didn’t care. His own arms wrapped around Jon’s.

Belonging. 

Belonging.

Jon felt the tears on his face. They were his. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted that too. 

“I’m sorry.” He said again. Wanted to try to explain. I used the Web to tie our souls together so that I wouldn’t lose you. 

“You’re an idiot Jon.” Martin answered, holding him tighter, shivering as he thawed. “I’m so glad you’re here.” His voice broke a little. “I missed you so much. I thought--I thought you’d never wake up.”

It was a rush of feeling. The coma. Martin had lost him then, and even seeing him alive in front of him hadn’t taken that certainty of loss. That he would never see him again. 

“I’m here,” Jon whispered. “I’m alive. I’ll be alive with you, if that’s alright.”

Martin laughed, sniffed. “Yeah,” He said quickly, voice wrought with emotion. “That’s alright. Peter is going to be pissed.”

“Good.” Jon said. “Good.” 


End file.
